Isolation refers to the “state of separation between persons or groups.” In 1984, George Orwell explores the idea of isolation in the futuristic world in which the novel is set as a warning to modern day society. The Inner Party uses several methods to assume almost complete control over their people. They want people to be cold and indifferent towards others, all while having fear slowly drilled into their minds. Isolation is something that the Inner Party wants to see. They want people to be isolated from one another so that the concept of “we” is completely eliminated. If everyone keeps to themselves, they cannot come together as one and possibly overthrow Big Brother, which is something ...view middle of the document...
Harriet Malinowitz says in The “Newspeak” of our time that the only real chance of the Inner Party being overthrown lies in the hands of the proles because they “are uneducated and the latent power of their massive numbers are unrealized, and only such a force could overthrow the ruling party” (Malinowitz 1). Malinowitz says this because the Inner Party does not see the proles as a threat, and therefore they are not monitored as much as the rest of the Party members; so if Big Brother is going to be stopped, it has to begin with the proles.
The Inner Party wants people to be cold towards others. For example, when Syme asks Winston if he has an extra razor blade he quickly replies “Not one!” (Orwell 51) even though he has two that are brand new and unused. Winston could have easily given up a razor blade to help out someone in need, but instead he simply denied that he had any and didn’t think twice about it. Another example of cold heartedness occurs when Winston sees Julia sitting at a lunch table one day at work. Winston catches up to the man who was in front of him in line and because “the little man was heading straight for the girl’s table,” (Orwell 118) he trips the poor man and sends his lunch flying all over the place. The fact that food is so scarce that it has to be rationed out only makes the unnecessary action worse. This is exactly what the Inner Party wants, being cold and indifferent towards other, or being “emotionally frigid.” It makes perfect sense however because being cold and indifferent to others leads to isolation and separation among the people. If the Inner Party did not make everyone act like this, they would have to worry about more people coming together and becoming rebellious, more people like Winston.
Even though it is not directly said in the novel that this is done on purpose, it can be assumed that it is more than a coincidence, but the Inner Party also promotes isolation by the large shortages of random necessities at random times. Since no one knows what there is going to be a shortage of next, no one trades or lends items to each other. Instead of people being kind to each other and lending things out, the Party members will not even acknowledge the fact that they have any of the items at all. This leads to less communication among people, which is a huge benefit to the Inner Party because it makes people hostile and emotionally separate from each other.
Another method of promoting isolation by the Inner Party is through the implementation of thought police. Thought...
